ROUTE 28

KIRKUS REVIEW

Route 28 takes you to Madison, New Jersey, and beyond -- and there the city people escape the tension of the city, the feel of a world gone awry. Faith sells farms to those who want them, hoping always for one real dirt farmer who buys because he loves the soil -- and not because he doesn't love the city streets. He gets drunk often -- he helps his neighbors even more often. The week-end of the Fourth brings many things to a climax among the ""natives"" of whose lives the city people know nothing. Selena leaves a jealous husband and goes off to a roadside place with farmer Joe, who wants to lead a life all his own -- and the jealous husband is about to shoot up the two of them, killed himself when Faith intervenes, to prevent miscarriage of justice. Faith has learned that the woman he loves lacks the courage to take that love, so instead of molding his own life to his wishes, he sends young Joe off to security, taking Selena with him. Kaleidoscopic in presentation and vigor in telling redeems this from the commonplace. Some of it is of the Caldwell brand of earth -- earthy; there is a touch of Steinbeck tenderness -- but somehow it doesn't quite come off.

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